This site has been created to house information relevant to the Van Meter School Board.

Competency/Standards-Based Grading

A Must Read to Help You Understand Competency Based Learning

Winter of 2009-2010 School Year- The Building Leadership Team began to have discussions on grading practices in the Secondary Building
Spring of 2009-2010 School Year- Secondary Staff began having discussions facilitated by the Principal and the BLT around grading practices
September 2010- Building Professional Development centered around grading practices in learning team discussions. Survey completed that asked the following questions:

October 2010- Building Professional Development centered around grading practices in learning team discussions. Survey results were shared. Skyped with Matt Townsley, Curriculum Director, Solon and former upper level math teacher who had used SBG in his class.
November 2010- Building Professional Development time centered around the following two goals:

Short-Term Goal: Identify what students should know and be able to do in your class (for at least one unit), and use a standards-based grading approach to assess student learning for the unit.
Long-Term Goal: Evaluate the effectiveness of our current grading practices. Evaluate the effectiveness of Standards or Competency Based Grading. Determine what is the best way to assess student learning. Implement the best practice for assessing student learning as a staff.

Remainder of Building Professional Development for 2010-2011 school year focused on teachers working in collaborative teams to implement SBG or Competency-Based Grading at whatever level they saw fit for where they were at individually.
May 2011- Building Goal established that stated: 100% of teachers will have at least one class using a form of competency-based grading (shift to competency based from SBG because wanted it to be based more on skills and it aligned with language DE was using) to assess student learning.
August 2011- Building PD time- Matt Townsley and Russ Goerend worked with staff on how they have implemented SBG in their classrooms.
2011-Present- All Building PD time dedicated to providing time for teachers to work on implementing and facilitating understanding of competency/standards-based grading in their classes.

Other Resources: